The silver fox skin that had been stolen was their whole fortune.

The proceeds of its sale was to have been their bulwark against need.

It was to have given them a degree of independence, and above all else the little hoard that its sale would have brought them was to have lightened Lem's burden of labour during his declining years.
Eli Horn was a big, broad-shouldered, swarthy young man of few words.
For an hour after he heard his father's detailed story of Indian Jake's visit to the cabin, he sat in sullen silence by the stove.
Suddenly he arose, lifted his rifle from the pegs upon which it rested against the wall, dropped some ammunition into his cartridge bag, and swinging it over his shoulder strode toward the door.
"Where you goin', Eli ?" asked Lem from his bunk.
"To hunt Indian Jake," said Eli as he closed the door behind him and passed out into the night..